The Hunger Games Pulls in $68.2 Million Opening Day

Gary Ross’ adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ popular sci-fi novel The Hunger Games opened at midnight on Thursday night and after raking in $19.7 million in midnight screenings, it grossed another $48.5 million on Friday for an opening day gross of $68.2 million. That is the fifth biggest opening day for a movie domestically as well as the fifth biggest single day gross.

With that one day of box office returns, The Hunger Games is Lionsgate’s sixth highest grossing movie of all time, but with Saturday and Sunday, it should end up with somewhere between $138 and 142 million for the weekend, which puts it between the openings of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. This not only makes it the studio’s highest grossing movie but also the biggest March opening and biggest opening for a non-sequel, both previously held by Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

Check back tomorrow for the full box office report and the Top 12 estimates for other movies currently in theaters.